'Illegal immigrants' on run after sailing into sleepy Suffolk town

Six suspected illegal immigrants are on the run after disembarking from a private yacht in the harbour of a quiet Suffolk town.

Four men and two women were spotted at 6.30pm on Saturday evening being met by a black Range Rover at Bawdsey quayside, near Felixstowe, where the River Deben meets the North Sea. The car was later found abandoned at a nearby pub 12 miles away in the village of Bromeswell.

Police and Border Force officials have launched a joint inquiry and have released descriptions of the six people, but locals say smugglers are taking advantage of the lax controls around British coastlines to bring in illegal immigrants and drugs.

Peter West, who runs river tours from Orford, Suffolk, said the coast is vulnerable.

"There are no regular patrols and the only change is there are now cameras on the quay,” he said.

“It's the same with many of the small rivers and tributaries on this coast - people can come and get a several miles inland before they need to get off the boat."

Gangs of people smugglers are now believed to be targeting the North Sea as an alternative route into Britain - as security in the English Channel is stepped up.

If the group are illegal immigrants it is likely they came from Holland, Germany, Belgium or France where thousands are living in the notorious migrant camp known as The Jungle.

Last year Dutch police foiled a bid to smuggle more than 20 migrants from Albania and Vietnam across the North Sea from Holland in a yacht. Criminals gangs charge £5,000 each for a place on a small yacht or motor boat for the journey from Europe.

The East Anglian coast is particularly well-suited for smugglers - with remote creeks, estuaries and mudflats it makes it an ideal shoreline on which to land illegal immigrants in secret.

Chris Hobbs, a former Metropolitan Police Special Branch officer who worked in border control, warned resources had been redeployed to cover the security threat facing major airports leaving coastal defences "almost non-existent".

He said: "With all efforts focussed on major entry points isolated regions such as the Suffolk coast are becoming more attractive to smugglers and potentially terrorists. The problem is nobody really knows just how vulnerable the East Anglian coast might be.

"When you cut off one entry point the smugglers look elsewhere and the Border Force is so thinly spread it has little idea about what’s coming in and where. You can only imagine that if the smugglers will be taking advantage of these weak spots."

People smugglers have been charging £5,000 to bring immigrants into Britain

Eighteen months ago four members of a Ukranian crime gang were jailed for trying to smuggle six illegal immigrants into the UK by landing them at the tiny coastal village of Orford on the Suffolk coast under cover of darkness.

Coastwatch station controller Phil Humphrey said the Border Force are making fewer patrols along the Suffolk coast than before.

“We are the only teams that keep a regular watch on the coast but it would still be easy for people to come ashore undetected,” he said.

The Home Office said it treated national security as a priority with its Border Force vessels using intelligence to intercept any suspicious crafts travelling to the UK working in closer partnership with law enforcement agencies and the Royal Navy to increase patrols.

A spokesman said: "These measures will lead to faster, more co-ordinated responses to inbound threats and more intelligence about illegal goods and people destined for our shores and the use of hi-tech search equipment to find hidden drugs, weapons, and contraband as well as people trying to enter the country illegally.

Anyone with information about the latest incident is asked to contact police on 101 quoting CAD 352

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